NEW YORK—On the way through Manhattan, the mood grew darker, more pensive. Outside Radio City Music Hall, where the NFL draft was about to unfold, mystery and merriment held court, because there wouldn’t be any immediate losers no matter what the loudmouths might bray.

But a stroll down Sixth Avenue and a meander through Times Square saw the vibe dimming like a broken neon light. Because if these NHL playoffs have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain beyond the glass shaking as if mortars rumbled underneath.

Game 7s of any kind make it tough to exhale, but especially here. The New York Rangers hadn’t hosted a winner-take-all since 1994, when they lit up Broadway with a bravado that still lingers from the Stanley Cup finals. No wonder Thursday night at Madison Square Garden felt like the walls had moved in, and folks gnawed on their knuckles as if they were ice.

But as the final minutes ticked down and the scoreboard flashed a brilliant red—Rangers 2, Ottawa Senators 1—the roof came close to crumbling, or maybe blowing off. It’s been a lifetime since the Garden has rocked with this kind of force, this sort of delirium.

After trailing in the series three games to two against an Ottawa team that never learned the meaning of “quit,” the Rangers now advance to the second round against the Washington Capitals. Somehow the Rangers will have to quickly figure out how to replenish all the energy and sweat that’s been drained, for this was a clincher that wrung every ounce from every pore of every single body that was present.

“We defended our ass off in the third period,” said New York coach John Tortorella, as he cracked a smile for the first time in a month. “When they ramped it up on us there in the second and the third, that’s the true identity of our team right there, with everyone blocking shots.”

He also noted that “sometimes the first round is the hardest round,” a tip of the stick to the team that had just left its guts on the New York ice and not in any way a knock at the next opponent. Washington has proven it knows how to counterpunch.

Of course Thursday’s game, fittingly, ultimately hinged on Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers’ goalie extraordinaire, whose 26 saves seemed as if they all came in the frantic third period. A left pad save here, a block with his leg there, and still the Senators kept blitzing, the ice tilting. The Rangers' defense picked a fine time to sacrifice everything, blocking a staggering 23 shots.

“So many emotions those last five seconds when you realize, ‘Here we go. We got this,’” said Lundqvist, after calmly flicking away any residue of anguish that lingered from the last time he and the Rangers found themselves in this kind of predicament.

Lundqvist had been on the torturous end of Game 7 in 2009, when the Rangers lost to the Capitals, 2-1, after leading the series three games to one. He hasn’t forgotten what it felt like to see the season end in a furious blink, which could be why he muttered strange things in Ottawa Monday after ensuring this series would go the bloody distance.

It was something about an ominous someone wanting the Senators back in the game, obviously, because why else hadn’t goalie interference been called in Game 6 as Ottawa’s Chris Neil kicked at the puck with his skate? Well, sure, everyone knows that the league powers are biased against the Original Six, while the glamorous teams lurk in hot spots like Nashville and Phoenix.

Always there are silly conspiracy theorists, though Rangers fans will have to stifle their mumbling now that the Blueshirts have rediscovered the groove that propelled them to the No. 1 seed.

Both Rangers’ goals came via the sticks of defenseman, the first after Chris Kreider, the rookie who has had some kind of month, slipped the puck away from Ottawa’s Nick Foligno. Marc Staal, who had spent parts of the season out with a concussion, read the turnover, took a perfect feed from Derek Stepan—it seared like a laser through the legs of a defenseman—and slapped the puck past Craig Anderson 4:46 into the second period.

“I wasn’t really expecting the pass that quick,” Staal said of the gift that came from Stepan, who did just as he promised and turned his game around. “In Game 7s, you have to make those big blocks and take those big hits … that’s something we can hang our hats on.”

If the first goal allowed the Garden to unclench, the second—this one by blueliner Dan Girardi barely four minutes later—brought down the house. Girardi trailed a broken play, slipped unnoticed in front of the net, picked up a smooth pass from Brandon Dubinsky and unleashed a slap shot into the top of the net.

“They were relentless through the whole series,” Girardi said of Ottawa, a club that twice beat the Rangers in the postseason at the Garden, but couldn’t add to Daniel Alfredsson's power-play goal Thursday that cut New York’s lead in half.

All night Anderson was as fearless as his counterpart at the other end, but as the throats clutched in those final minutes, and as the crowd lustily crowed at a Rangers defense that refused to crack, the Ottawa goalie kept shooting glances upward, at the evil clock. As soon as the horn blared he headed for the glass, impatiently waiting for the exit door to open.

That’s what this game did. It caused a classy veteran to momentarily forget about hockey’s most treasured tradition.

Once Anderson realized there were still hands to shake, he quickly came back to the ice. He had made 27 saves on a night when the eighth-seeded team nearly toppled the East’s season-long best, in a Game 7 that chilled the bones. It’ll take plenty more of the same for the Rangers to replicate what transpired the last time they were the top seed, though the chants of “1994” that periodically pierced the night served as fresh reminders of the thrills that still haunt the Garden. For a more immediate, less warm-and-fuzzy nudge, there stood Tortorella, who along with Rangers forward Brad Richards won a pair of Game 7s in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, including the Stanley Cup clincher. Another smile crept through as the coach said of his current team, “I’m very happy with the group.”

And then came this: “They should be proud of themselves for about an hour.” Like everyone else in the area, at least he could finally stop grinding his teeth.